Speckled TanagerIxothraupis guttata

Diet and Foraging

Diet

Mostly small fruits, taken from shrubs and forest trees, especially Euphorbiaceae and Melastomaceae; unlike other Tangara also feeds on mistletoes and pecks pieces out of larger fruits (Snow and Snow 1971). Terrestrial arthropods are also taken, mostly from the underside of leaves, which the bird sometimes examines while clinging upside down from a branch (ffrench 1991). Stomach contents include vegetable matter (n=2); vegetable and fruit matter, and a beetle (n=1) (Isler and Isler 1999). Naoki (2003) recorded that T. guttata spent significantly more time foliage gleaning than congeneric, sympatric species in Costa Rica, and spent almost all (>90%) of time gleaning for fruits and arthropods among leaves.